Sesame Spinach Salad

Frozen spinach. It's a true powerhouse in the Slacker Gourmet's arsenal. Easily thawed for inclusion in casseroles or dips or thrown straight from the bag into a frying pan for sautéing (though that's another post), frozen spinach can be used in countless ways.

Until today, I had never thought to use frozen spinach in a cold salad application. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense - why buy and clean fresh spinach, just to clean it, boil it, and cool it down, when you could simply thaw and drain frozen spinach? I prefer the spinach in a bag, rather than the frozen bricks - it's much more manageable and thaws more evenly. I almost always have a couple of bags each of cut leaf and chopped spinach on hand.

Directions
Squeeze cold spinach in a tea towel or in multiple layers of paper towels, removing as much water as possible. Whisk together the sake, soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil in a medium bowl. Add the spinach and toss to coat with the dressing. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

TO TOAST SESAME SEEDS:
Preheat a small skillet over high heat. When the skillet is hot, add sesame seeds. Keep them constantly moving (either by swirling the pan or stirring with a wooden spoon). Sesame seeds toast quickly - about 1 minute for black sesame seeds, and between 1-2 minutes for white. They are done when you just start smelling a nutty sesame aroma. Black sesame seeds will turn shiny, and white ones will turn golden.

This turned out to be a good base recipe. I used a sweeter wine (it's what I had on hand) and less sugar - next time, I would definitely use sake and the full amount of sugar. I really like the sesame flavor with the spinach, so next time, I may even increase the amount of sesame oil slightly. For a quick salad requiring no fresh produce, however, this was pretty great!